Such an incredibly potent poem. Poetry isn’t easy to create; each line–each word–is dense with meaning. The mental image of a woman standing in the dark, just out of reach of the sole, thin stream of light that her partner walked into feels like a black and white gallery piece. My writing forte is the novel, but being able to analyze and understand poetry is essential to writing well.

Oh, I definitely understand. My heart lies with novels and much longer fiction as well. But the practice from writing poetry has helped me to trim out the excess and focus on the things that really matter. 😊

I agree. On Instagram (which is undoubtedly never free from drama) there’s a debate going on about writers that share micropoetry, as if those pieces lack any kind of depth or true meaning, and as such, those writers are just too dumb or narrow minded to do anything better. I think that’s wrong. Sure, it could be true for some, but not all. The point is to make people think. To put them in a particular situation or setting and let them fill in the blanks. If that happens, how are we not connecting with our readers or doing what we set out to do? The number of words hold no value for quality. Thank you, as always, for your wonderful support! And for letting me rant sometimes. Speaking of that, I want to email you….

Yep. Sigh. I appreciate when people see beyond the (few) words and feel the deeper connections. Stephen King, in On Writing, talked about giving information. He made an example of a white rabbit on a white table in a white room. But the rabbit had a big, red 8 written on its side. Readers don’t need to know how big the room is, or what that table looks like. What matters to readers is WTF is going on with that rabbit. That’s the focus. And the rest of what isn’t is filled in automatically, based on the reader’s imagination. Short fiction or poetry can have the same effect. You give just enough of what matters, and the readers will see it and interpret as they like. Some will have an abundance of emotions and memories stirred up, some will see the moment and empathize with it. But the ones that believe that anyone who writes these things are idiots (this also reminds me of the woman that recently bashed self publishing when she had no actual knowledge of it), are the ones missing out.

The night was dark when you left me
But my inner self knew in it
Light is what I am
As I am love and I loved you
All I had to do back again was love self
Thus I loved myself more
And here I am seeing light even when it is dark at night